


ashes to ashes, dust to dust

by icouldbuildacastle



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Gen, i have been destroyed so thx marvel, infinity war reaction fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-30
Updated: 2018-04-30
Packaged: 2019-04-30 02:26:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,382
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14486775
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/icouldbuildacastle/pseuds/icouldbuildacastle
Summary: She sat, and sat, and sat in front of that television screen for hours, chewing her nails off and glancing compulsively at her phone every ten seconds, as if Peter would call and say, “Sorry I’m late coming home! You wouldn’t believe what happened today…” even though she knows that he’s not going to call, he can’t call, that he’s in goddamn motherfucking space, because the news cameras caught Spiderman climbing into that forsaken donut before it blasted out of the stratosphere.





	ashes to ashes, dust to dust

_ashes to ashes, dust to dust…_

May watched the end of the world through a TV screen.

It was a nice day. Sunny, high 60s, one of the first real days of spring.

It was still early morning, Peter had just left on the bus to school. She grabbed her purse, stuffed her feet into the orthopedic flats Peter always teased her about, and was about to head out the door when she heard the noise of the TV. Peter always felt compelled to watch the morning news while he ate, even though it just stressed May out, and he must have left it on today. May shook her head, exasperated but fond- _doesn’t he know that’s a great way to up the electric bill? Scatterbrain._

When she walked over to the coffee table and picked up the remote, the normal morning news changed. The red banner- _BREAKING NEWS… ALIENS IN NEW YORK?_ \- startled her.

She saw the stupid _stupid_ metal donut, and the remote dropped straight down from her slack hand, broken apart on the floor.

 

…

 

She sat, and sat, and _sat_ in front of that television screen for hours, chewing her nails off and glancing compulsively at her phone every ten seconds, as if Peter would call and say _“Sorry I’m late coming home! You wouldn’t_ believe _what happened today…”_ even though she knows that he’s not going to call, he _can’t_ call, that he’s in goddamn motherfucking space, because the news cameras caught Spiderman climbing into that forsaken donut before it blasted out of the stratosphere.

All May wants is for Peter to come home, so she can yell at him for scaring her, for being reckless. So she can hug him so tight he can’t breathe. This is the realization of all her worst fears since discovering Peter was Spiderman- _what if he goes somewhere I can’t follow?_

And now he’s done it. He’s gone, to god-knows-where in the galaxy, and there’s a battle against fucking demons in Wakanda, and…

May can’t do anything about it. She cannot follow. All she can do is sit, and sit, and sit.

 

…

 

It’s been hours, and May is dead-eyed in front of the TV screen, past the point of nervous fidgets. The fighting in Wakanda seems to be going well, but there’s been no sign of Iron Man, of Spiderman, of _Peter,_ of the metal donut that took them away. The rest of the Avengers are all there, but not _her_ Avenger, her sweet neighborhood superhero, Avenger-in-training, her _fucking_ kid.

But maybe there is hope, maybe the Avengers will pull off the impossible once again- they have a decent track record, right? And apparently Wakanda is fucking insane, the city of the future, technology and weapons beyond May’s comprehension. She’s sucking in deep breaths through her nose, counting seven seconds in, seven seconds out, and trying not to add up all those seconds into the minutes and hours Peter has been away. Thor really is a fucking god, absolutely obliterating hundreds of the demon-things, and the Scarlet Witch is out to play, and the newscasters are starting to perk up, sit up straight, radiate hope.

And that’s when it happens. Lois Lane is sitting there in her chair, hands folded on the desk, just like she always is for the 8 o’clock news, when she starts to dissolve. Her red pantsuit crumbles, her hands turn to dust, her face disappears. Iris West is frozen, terror locked on her face, and she slowly, _slowly_ reaches out a shaking hand to touch the pile of ash on the chair- all that remains of her cohost.

Iris holds her hand out in front of her like she’s a puppet, not in control of her movement, and her gaze locks on the dust coating her fingers. There’s dead silence on the air- not a soul in the studio is breathing, not a soul in the city is breathing. The quiet hangs over the world, the oppressive humidity before the storm. 

And then she screams. The storm breaks.

 

…

 

The unnatural moment of silence was unnerving, but May desperately wishes for it back. The camera in the newsroom has crashed to the floor, showing feet dissolve into dust, and May doesn’t want to think about what happened to the cameraman. She can hear the screams and wails throughout her apartment building, from the streets outside, as mothers lose their children, as husbands lose their wives. 

May hears Mrs. Gonzalez next door screaming her son Manuel’s name over and over and over until her voice goes hoarse and terror and confusion morph into shell-shocked horror and unimaginable grief. And May feels terrible, knows she must be an awful person, because she thinks, _“Thank God that’s not me.”_  

All May can do is sit, and hope that this disappearing is limited to Earth, that wherever in the universe Peter is is safe from this divine punishment.

And so May sits on her lumpy couch in her Queens apartment, perfectly still, while the world crumbles down all around her.

 

…

 

She doesn’t know how long it’s been when Tony Stark walks through the door. Time has no meaning now, it seems. What are days, what are jobs, what is _time_ when time has been stolen so arbitrarily from half the world?

But Tony Stark, the Iron Man, walks through her front door and May stands bolt upright, spinning to face him, a desperate hope growing in her heart that she’ll see Peter walking in next to him, or behind him, or slung over his shoulder, or crawling in on the ceiling-

But no. It’s just Tony Stark.

 

…

 

And May doesn’t understand- if the universe had to be split in half, why would it be _Peter_ who was taken, why not her, he has his whole life ahead of him, bright future and good heart and so much to give- and May… She just isn’t anything special. She can’t save people the way Peter can _\- could_. All she does is take care of Peter, and apparently she has failed even at that.

“ _Why_? Just- why would-” she chokes out, before brutally cutting herself off, choking the words that rise up in her throat. She wants to scream at how _unfair_ it all is, but God, if there’s one thing she knows by now, it’s that life is rarely fair, and death never is.

Tony Stark just stands there in the middle of her kitchen, hands at his sides twisting into his shirt until he remembers to stop fidgeting, and she has never seen a man look so empty. Stark has been splashed over the media since May was a teen, and he has always seemed larger than life- even when he walked into her apartment that first time a lifetime ago, it was like life had become a dream, because what other explanation was there? Fast-talking, smooth, somehow reassuring even though he was a goddamn stranger and taking her kid out of the country… Tony Stark was something else, a spark of stubbornness, of creativity, of _fuck yeah I can_.

The Avengers might have been broken into pieces, scattered across the globe (and galaxy), but Tony Stark remained constant. He was always there, in New York, ready to sweep in, to speak out, to listen to Peter’s ridiculously long voicemails, to give him a multimillion dollar suit that May can run through the washer.

And Tony is constant now. He is a shell, shock written into his very bones, but he remains. And Peter- Peter _doesn’t._ In that moment May hates Tony Stark with a venom she has never felt, for getting her kid into this, bringing him into space, into this fight, for not bringing Peter home. It’s not fair, it’s not Tony’s fault- and even though he doesn’t say it, it’s written all over his face that he wishes he had died in Peter’s stead- but it doesn’t matter.

Tony Stark is standing in her kitchen, and Peter is a pile of dust scattered to the winds on a foreign planet.

 

…

 

All May has ever wanted was to keep Peter safe. But at the end of the day, at the end of the world, none of her hope or love matters. Peter has slipped away, dust falling through her fingers.

 

**Author's Note:**

> damn i really thought peter was making it out of this one- and marvel just went "haha bitch u thought! fuck u!" first fic i write in y e a r s and it's this fuckin bullshit lmao
> 
> anyways tom holland's amazing amazing performance made me curl into a ball and sob in the middle of a theater so thanks boy
> 
> im @swiftcitybitch on tumblr PLEASE come talk to me, comfort me, send me a meme, or send me fic requests


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